The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) called for an investigation into maintenance cuts on the railways.

General secretary Mick Cash said “serious questions” needed to be asked about the state of rail infrastructure in Britain.

He said: “The Government should be praising the staff out there today working to get services running, rather than threatening them with more cuts and privatisation.

“RMT is demanding an investigation into the impact of current cuts to maintenance and renewals at Network Rail and the future impact of the further planned cuts, privatisation and fragmentation that we know the Government have lined up.

“Those cuts should be halted and reversed if we are to avoid repeated breakdowns and failures.

“If the profits bled out of the rail network by the rip-off private rail companies were reinvested in staffing and infrastructure we could build a railway genuinely fit for the modern age.”

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